The days are full of this and that at the moment.
The garden is busy offering lots of food that needs to be turned into other things; being in the kitchen makes me want to try new things, and there is the occasional wee commission to complete.
So tomato and corn relish has become the big winner of this summer - I have almost lost count of the number of bottles that Barry and I have made; it was certainly bumper tomato crop!
Time in the kitchen got me to thinking about baking bread, something I have always wanted to do so I gave it a go and was thrilled with the results.
And then to get out of the kitchen and back to the studio it was time to do some practice and a small commission.
Getting the hand, and the size right. And caps versus lower case.
Then the colour...I started with the FineTec metallics, but none of the lighter ones seemed to be just right. We were going for warm, soft, elegant, a hint of grey... etc.
The top one was almost invisible; and the bottom one too gold.
So then I tried to knock the metallics back a bit by adding tiny touches of black ink; numbers 3&4 here.
Still not quite doing it, so we turned to gouache, which was also going to give us a more matte look.
Here's the final trial list - from the metallics at the top through the metallics plus ink down to the final selection at the bottom. I used white gouache, black gouache with a hint of Schminke gold gouache.
Hooray!
The garden is busy offering lots of food that needs to be turned into other things; being in the kitchen makes me want to try new things, and there is the occasional wee commission to complete.
So tomato and corn relish has become the big winner of this summer - I have almost lost count of the number of bottles that Barry and I have made; it was certainly bumper tomato crop!
Time in the kitchen got me to thinking about baking bread, something I have always wanted to do so I gave it a go and was thrilled with the results.
And then to get out of the kitchen and back to the studio it was time to do some practice and a small commission.
Getting the hand, and the size right. And caps versus lower case.
The top one was almost invisible; and the bottom one too gold.
So then I tried to knock the metallics back a bit by adding tiny touches of black ink; numbers 3&4 here.
Still not quite doing it, so we turned to gouache, which was also going to give us a more matte look.
Here's the final trial list - from the metallics at the top through the metallics plus ink down to the final selection at the bottom. I used white gouache, black gouache with a hint of Schminke gold gouache.
Hooray!
There is alchemy to be seen in every picture ... love the glowing tomatoes, the crusty bread, and the march of your hand scribing letters to a perfect end.
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz!
DeleteLooks delicious, fiona and looking at these pics makes me hungry ! What a coincidence: I also bought the same fine-tec paint yesterday. I haven't tried them yet, but now I can already see what they look like on this paper. In the end, though, I have to admit that the gouache indeed looked better on the paper that you were using here.
ReplyDeleteAnnick you will love the fin-etc golds! They were too much for the mellowness of the photography that the words accompanied, so I was happy the gouache mix worked out. Enjoy!
Deletei've enjoyed these blog posts, and all the experiments and making and the glorious colors in laura and tomatos...
ReplyDeleteThe variety of life Velma!
Delete